Tourists Hurt in France Acid Attack are Students, University Says

PARIS (AP) — The Latest on the acid attack on U.S. tourists in the French city of Marseille (all times local):

10:15 p.m.

The four American tourists who French authorities say were attacked with acid at a train station in the city of Marseille have been identified as students at Boston College in Massachusetts.

The private Jesuit university said in a statement Sunday that the four female students were treated for burns at a Marseille hospital after they were sprayed in the face with acid on Sunday morning. The statement said the four all were juniors studying abroad, three of them at the college’s Paris program.

The director of the college’s Office of International Programs, Nick Gozik, said the women have been released from the hospital and “it appears that the students are fine, considering the circumstances.”

The students were identified as Courtney Siverling, Charlotte Kaufman, Michelle Krug and Kelsey Korsten.

A 41-year-old female suspect has been arrested in the attack. Boston College says police described the suspect as “disturbed.”

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7:45 p.m.

French authorities are not investigating the acid attack on four American women in the southern city of Marseille as an act of terrorism for the time being.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said that its counter-terrorism division had not assumed jurisdiction for the attack at Marseille’s main train station on Sunday morning. The prosecutor’s office has responsibility for all terror-related cases in France.

A spokeswoman for Marseille’s prosecutor said earlier that the 41-year-old woman arrested as a suspect in the attack did not make any extremist declarations, but said officials couldn’t rule out terror as a motive so early in the investigation.

Regional newspaper La Provence, quoting unidentified police officials, reported that the suspect had a history of mental health problems and didn’t try to flee the site of the attack.

The Marseille fire department says two of the tourists were slightly injured.

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5:05 p.m.

The United States embassy in Paris says diplomatic staff in France is in contact with French authorities about the acid attack on four American women.

An embassy spokesman said Sunday that the U.S. consulate in the southern port city of Marseille is communicating with French officials about the attack at Marseille’s main train station.

The spokesman says U.S. authorities in France are not immediately commenting further on what happened to protect the privacy of the American tourists, all women in their 20s.

French officials have arrested a 41-year-old female suspect in the attack.

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4:25 p.m.

The spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor’s office says the suspect who attacked four American women with acid in the Marseille train station did not yell any out any terror-linked threats.

The spokeswoman says there were no immediate indications that the attack was terror-related but adds that officials can’t be 100 percent sure about ruling out terror links at such an early stage of the investigation.

She says French officials have arrested a suspect in Sunday’s acid attack, a 41-year-old woman, and the four victims have been taken to the hospital. There was no immediate information on where the American tourists were from.

The spokeswoman spoke on condition of anonymity, per the French judicial system, in a phone call to The Associated Press.

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3:45 p.m.

The Marseille prosecutor’s office says four young female U.S. tourists have been attacked with acid in Marseille’s main train station by a woman who has been arrested.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor office told The Associated Press that two of the tourists have been injured in the face in the attack Sunday in the Saint Charles train station and one of them has a possible eye injury. She says all four of the tourists, who are in their 20s, have been hospitalized, two of them for shock.

She did not have any more details and spoke on condition of anonymity, per the French judicial system.

There was no immediate information on where the U.S. tourists were from.

Marseille is a port city in southern France that is closer to Barcelona than Paris.